This is Part 2 of a three-part series, Navigating the Financiapocoalypse. It’s intended as a get-started guide for people just starting down the path of actively managing their money.

Even more important than how you’re spending your money this week or this month is what you’re doing with what’s left over. Americans are saving less than ever before, at a time when health care costs are rising and retirement plans (and the chances that Social Security will exist in 35 years) are dwindling. You do not want to get caught with your pants down later in life — start saving now. Save early, save often. In an economy like this, though, forcing yourself to save can be tough.

Set a goal

As I said in part 1, I don’t track every dollar of my monthly expenses. I do, however, kind of have a reverse budget — I don’t map out my monthly expenses, but I do keep an eye on my savings percentage. I set a goal — say, I want to save at least 30% of my take-home pay every month — and if I’m not meeting that goal, or not able to meet it comfortably, then I know I need to go back and re-examine my “right now” expenditures. Once you have a number to shoot for, you have to set some things in motion to achieve it.
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This is Part 1 of a three-part series, Navigating the Financiapocoalypse. It’s intended as a get-started guide for people just starting down the path of actively managing their money.

Before you can do any saving, you need to get your spending under control. As I said in my intro to this series, however, this isn’t going to be a guide on how to be a total cheapskate. I’m not going to be the one advocating use of a coffee shop for Internet access and the sports bar to watch TV, or putting on six sweatshirts so you don’t have to turn the heat above 50. But there’s plenty of smart decisions you can make to reduce expenses while still maintaining a lifestyle you enjoy.

My thoughts on budgets

Lots of financial types insist that you have to have a strict budget. Maybe this is starting off on the wrong foot in a lecture about controlling spending, but I have a confession to make: I don’t keep a budget. (I have a guideline that I call a “reverse budget,” but we’ll talk about that in part 2). I do keep rough numbers in my head, but I’m not going to agonize over every dollar — it’s too time-consuming and too much micromanaging. I know what our typical monthly expenses are, and I try to keep them low. Beyond that, my energy is better spent on doing more active things to control our money. Besides, many of the people I’ve met who do dollar-by-dollar budgets are usually so obsessed with recording that last receipt in Quicken that they forget to enjoy life.
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Given the number of conversations my friends and I have about finances and money management these days, I think a post of this nature is long overdue. Given my age bracket (mid 20s), part of this is just my demographic being new to managing money — once they get out of college and actually have some money, people tend to develop a new interest in managing it properly — but a big part of it, of course, is our current economic situation. More than ever, you want to make sure a buck goes as far as it can — I think it’s safe to say that’s a concern no matter tax bracket you fall into.

I’ve absorbed a lot of information from people who have been doing this a lot longer than I have, but of course I do have some of my own experiences to share. I’m not an expert, obviously, but if I can help anyone even a little then I’ll be happy. People not handling their money properly — either because of apathy, ignorance, or by the hand of misleading and disingenuous bankers — is largely what led to what many bloggers are calling the “financiapocalypse.” (That’s going to be the last time I use that word, it’s too hard to type!)
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The long-awaited (for Xbox fans, anyway) system overhaul for the Xbox 360, known as the New Xbox Experience, was rolled out this morning. The NXE is a completely new interface for the 360, and along with the eye candy brings some cool new features to Microsoft’s venerable gaming platform. More significant than the changes themselves, I think, is the fact that such a complete system upgrade is possible — it’s almost like getting a new system without paying a dime or lifting a finger. No one has ever done such a complete revamp of a large installed base of “set top boxes”, which are generally considered static devices once they roll off the factory.

Let’s take a look at the major improvements in the NXE.

Interface

I’ve always felt that the previous Xbox 360 “blade” interface, while visually interesting in certain respects, lacked quite a bit in the user interface department. It was kind of clunky feeling, and there were times I wasn’t sure what I could click on (or how to get the cursor there) and what I couldn’t. So the first and most obvious improvement in the NXE is the look and feel. It’s slicker, more open feeling, and more modern, bringing it in line with the PS3 interface. It also seems a bit snappier when transitioning from screen to screen — although some interface niggles remain. For example, it takes way too many clicks to delete a game (and I download a lot of trial games, so I am frequently deleting things). However, on the whole it is a very welcome improvement, and makes navigating the dashboard a much more pleasant experience.
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If there’s one technical aspect of photography that causes more confusion for beginners than any other, it’s probably aperture. I feel like I explain it a lot, and just this week a friend was asking about a lens purchase and the subject came up again; I thought it was about time to write a quick post on the subject.

The aperture affects how much light is able to reach the camera’s sensor. There’s a bladed diaphragm inside the lens that expands and contracts, depending on how you’re using the camera and what settings you’ve chosen, to allow more or less light in. The aperture is expressed as “f/2.8″ or “f/4″.

What do those numbers mean? The smaller the number, the larger the aperture (meaning more light gets in). That may seem confusing until you think of the expression as a fraction. 1/2.8 is greater than 1/4 is greater than 1/8. Lenses specifications are described in the maximum aperture the lens can achieve — e.g., the Nikon 50mm AF-S f/1.4 can “open up” to f/1.4, which is very wide. Minimum apertures are rarely a concern; that 50mm Nikon can “stop down” to f/16. Cheaper zoom lenses, like the kit lens that came with my Nikon D40, sometimes have variable minimum apertures. For example, my 18-55mm lens is rated as “f/3.5-5.6″. That means that at 18mm it can open up to f/3.5, and as you extend through the zoom range up to 55mm you eventually can’t open it any wider than f/5.6.
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Plex - Band of Brothers episode list

A couple months ago I wrote my initial impressions of Plex, a Mac-centric fork of the venerable XBMC software that was originally written for hacked 1st-generation Xboxes. In early September I bought a Mac Mini to run Plex, and have been using it exclusively as my living-room media streamer since then. The original post got a number of comments, and I’ve received a lot of emails as well so I wanted to follow up now that I’m more familiar with the software.

My original endorsement of Plex stands: it’s a beautiful piece of software, and is being actively developed so improvements are constantly forthcoming. It has taken our interaction with the terabytes of video I keep on hand to a whole new level. It’s so slick and easy to use, as a matter of fact, that sometimes I’ll pick something to watch through Plex even though I have the DVD right there on the shelf next to the TV. I hate physical media, I find it to be a nuisance, and Plex delivers a much richer way of experiencing your video library.
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In so many ways, we have witnessed a historic election. While the final numbers are still coming in, it is clear that, as Senator McCain said, “the American people have spoken, and spoken clearly.” He didn’t squeak by, or have the deciding electoral votes handed to him by a court. Barack Obama won the election decisively — current electoral numbers are 338 vs. 156. It is encouraging that in his wonderful speech, he made a point of emphasizing that it is his ultimate desire to be the president of every single American, and that he wants to reach out to those whose support he has yet to earn. I think he’s actually got the moves, character, and intelligence to back up his promises of bringing people together. President Obama will be as much of a uniter as Bush was a divider.

I have to hand it to John McCain…that was an extremely gracious and classy concession speech. His supporters didn’t exactly match his grace, but Senator McCain himself showed why he’s been so successful in the past — he really is an honorable man, someone who has sacrificed more for his country than many of us can imagine, and someone who ultimately can put what’s best for the country ahead of his own ambition. He’s just not the man for the job, but he threw his support behind our new president with wholehearted sincerity and patriotism. That’s what America needs, and I hope McCain is properly recognized for what will likely be his last great public act of selflessness for our country.

I hope people realize that despite the nasty mud slinging from the GOP at times, which I do not blame McCain for personally, we just witnessed an election between two good men, politics notwithstanding. I have no idea when that last happened. Now, America has chosen a leader who I believe will represent a dramatic shift in how our government works and in how Americans interact with their government. These aren’t typical times, and this is not a typical politician. He doesn’t want to exclude people, no matter what their political stance — a stark contrast to the Bush doctrine which sees anyone who doesn’t agree with them as an enemy to be squashed.

Let’s hope, for all our sakes, that President Obama brings all of this to the table and more. I hope that even the typically pessimistic can find some room for optimism with Obama’s “we/us/our” inclusiveness, because we really do need a president for everyone.

As I write this in the first minutes of Tuesday, November 4, 2008, I realize that I am — for the first time in my memory — really looking forward to this election day. There’s a buzz, an energy, an enthusiasm surrounding this presidential contest that I have never witnessed, and in the midst of all of our country’s troubles it is uplifting to see so many regular people recognize the importance of their duty to vote. I have mostly phased out politics on this blog, but I would be remiss to let this date pass unobserved, even on my own tiny little corner of the Internet.

What’s different about this election? Well, aside from the country being in dire financial straits, I think the candidates themselves represent a fairly distinct change from what we’ve seen over the last couple decades. Since I’ve been following politics, this is the first time we’ve had two candidates that I can truly — if I reach deep down — respect, at least on some level.

I strongly disagree with most of the policies and the dirty campaign McCain has run, but I’ve been watching the guy long enough — 10 years or so, I think — that I know he’s not a bad man. I think he got sucked in by the Bush-era Republican political handlers, who are for the most part parasitical non-humans, but at his core he’s at least intelligent and for the most part honorable, or at least as honorable as you can expect many politicians to be. Those are two qualities that, at the presidential level, you’d have to go back to at least Reagan, if not further. Unfortunately, since he started running for president those two qualities have been diminished by the structure and tenor of his whole campaign. Picking a wacko like Sarah Palin doesn’t help. It’s also refreshing to see the Republican party pick a candidate who doesn’t completely pander (read: lie) to the far right about religion just to get their votes.

My respect for McCain doesn’t make me any less passionate about my support for Obama, however. Here’s the guy who’s mostly responsible for energizing this election. Extremely intelligent, fresh, straightforward, and not afraid to confront the numbers (I like specifics), something that McCain’s handlers rarely allow into speeches for some reason (his and Palin’s speeches are mostly interminable soundbites). More than any politician I’ve ever heard, I think he actually believes the stuff he says, and more importantly understands it. And whatever disagreements I have with some of his ideas, there’s no denying the fact that this guy is probably this generation’s Kennedy in terms of revitalizing a dormant political demographic. We need this political shot in the arm to give people who have been depressed about the idiocy of the past eight years a chance to regain interest and maybe — just maybe — some degree of faith in our government. Hey, it’s not completely impossible.
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